VIRTUAL REALITY AS A TRAINING TOOL FOR BUILDING OPERATIONS

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) applications within the AEC industry have seen a significant rise over the past couple of years. People within the AEC industry have started to realize the benefits and capabilities of VR. The most common use case of VR has been its use as a spatial visualization tool. Immersion and Interactivity have been at the forefront of what VR should offer. This thesis aims at exploring of the one of the many use cases of VR for the AEC industry. This research project aimed at using VR as a training tool for building operations. This meant for outlining what type of building operations training to do, development of an interactive Virtual environment that operators can train on and finally recording their outputs in the form of a written survey. A case study form of research methodology was used to document the findings of this research project. Operators were asked to experience the VR training themselves and provide a feedback in the way of answering a survey form which aimed at documenting their understanding of the system and process knowledge with regards to the training. The findings from this study showed that VR as a training tool has a bright future and that the knowledge transfer through VR training is much more efficient. Looking ahead this research project explored a relatively new use case of VR especially for the conventional construction industry and it can be hoped that such efforts to explore other use cases can make the construction industry’s existing work flow more efficient.